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Your account

Running Your account

Statements:

To help you manage Your account and check entries on it, we will give you regular account statements. These may be provided monthly, quarterly, or at a minimum annually, unless this is not appropriate for the type of account. You may ask for account statements to be provided more frequently than normally available on your type of account.

Statement details may also be available on request or through electronic banking terminals. You may be charged for statements requested over and above those normally provided. You must ensure that you manage your use of statements to meet your requirements taking into account the costs of providing them.

If your statement or savings account book has an entry, which seems to be wrong, you should tell us as soon as possible so that we can resolve matters.

Cheques:

We may keep original cheques paid from Your account or copies of these, where the originals have been returned to you, for the period prescribed by law. If we do, we may charge a fee for supplying you with additional copies.

If, within a reasonable period after the entry has been made, there is a dispute with us about a cheque paid from Your account, we will give you the cheque or a copy (where the cheque has already been returned to you) as proof of the instruction to pay.

When we need to inform you that we have returned one of your cheques or other items as unpaid, we will do this within a reasonable period of time and in the most cost-effective way, assuring you of our efforts to maintain confidentiality and privacy.

When we become aware that a cheque deposited by you is returned unpaid, we will inform you within a reasonable period of time and in the most cost-effective way.

When you deposit a cheque you should remember that we usually act as a collection agent on your behalf. We may, at our discretion, credit the value of this deposit to your account and determine if that credit may be accessed before we get value ourselves. Should we in turn not receive value for any reason, we will reverse the credit and any associated interest.

Lost or damaged payment instruments:

All banks (locally and internationally) work on the principle that if you hand a cheque to them for collection, they act as your agent to collect the funds from the cheque issuer's bank. As such, and given the complexities of a cheque clearing system, they can not accept responsibility for the loss or theft of the cheque in the system. Consequently, if a cheque or other payment instrument which you have deposited for collection is lost or damaged, you will have to approach the issuer of the cheque or instrument to stop payment (if it has not already been paid out) and issue a replacement cheque or instrument. If you provide us with the relevant details of the drawer of the 'lost' cheque, and you mandate us to act on your behalf, we will take reasonable steps to replace the cheque. We may require an indemnity from you in case the original cheque has already been paid to you.

Cards and PINs:

We will issue you a card, or replace one which has already been issued. A replacement fee may be charged.

Your PIN (Personal Identification Number), password and other unique means of identification are strictly confidential. Where a bank supplies these, they will be issued only to you, separately from your card where applicable. You should never disclose your PIN, password, or other unique means of personal identification to anyone, and specifically not any employee of the bank.

PIN self-selection:

We will tell you if you can select your own PIN, password or other unique means of personal identification. We will encourage you to avoid birth dates and simple sequences numbers such as 1111; 12345 and so on.

Lending

Financial assessment:

All lending will be subject to our assessment of your ability to afford and willingness to repay. This assessment may include:

Taking into account your income and expenses, including the dependability of your income;

How you have handled your financial affairs in the past;

Information obtained from credit risk management services and related services, and other appropriate parties, for example, employers, other lenders and landlords;

How you have conducted your previous and existing accounts with us;

Information supplied by you, including verification of your identity and the purpose of the borrowing;

Credit assessment techniques, for example, credit scoring;

Your age;

Any security or collateral provided; and

Taking into account your statement of assets and liabilities.

Notification that credit has been refused:

If an application for credit is declined we will inform you of the reasons for this which could include whether the decline is based on:

The overall credit score;

Credit risk management services information;

Over-indebtedness; or

A specific policy of the bank.

With automated credit scoring systems these reasons may not be explicit in which case general reasons only, can be provided.

Suretyships:

If you want us to accept a suretyship or other security from someone for your loans, we will inform you and the surety or the surety's legal adviser that the surety is entitled by law to your confidential financial information.

We will:

Encourage the surety to take independent legal advice to make sure that they understand their commitment and the potential consequences of their decision. All the documents they will be asked to sign will contain this recommendation as a clear and prominent notice;

Advise and caution them that by giving the surety or other security they may become liable instead of or as well as you;

Advise them whether it is a limited (and the maximum value) or unlimited suretyship; and

Inform the parties of the implications of suretyships in terms of their periods of validity, the potential amount/s of indebtedness, the nature of the debt covered and the cancellation/termination process.

Foreign exchange services

We will give you an explanation of the service, details of the exchange rate and an explanation of the charges which apply to any foreign exchange transactions which you are about to make. Where this is not possible, we will inform you of the basis on which these will be worked out.

If you wish to transfer money abroad, we will inform you how this is done and will give you, at least, the following information:

a description of the services and how to use them;

an explanation of when the money you have sent abroad should get there and any reason for potential delays; and

any commission or charges which you will have to pay, including a warning where a foreign bank's charges may also have to be paid by the recipient.